


sometimes it seems that we'll touch that dream

by song_of_staying



Series: Angelica Arrives Later AU [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams, Epistolary, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 04:05:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9960278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_staying/pseuds/song_of_staying
Summary: From the correspondence of Alexander and Angelica.





	

_The British are at the gates: Alexandria is going to fall._

_Peggy has disappeared, and Angelica doesn't have time to look for her, but Peggy will be safer on her own anyway. Angelica's hands are full of books. She remembers a painting they used to have in the sunroom, a shepherd girl holding cherries in her skirt. Angelica doesn't have time to choose the most valuable books, so she chooses the lightest, and smallest. She gathers them in the slippery brown taffeta of her own skirt._

_They're at the doors and she can't escape with the books. She can hide them, under the taffeta. Finally, a use for underskirts! The British are just here to destroy the books and the men; Angelica is safe, so long as they don't guess._

_“Oh, Angelica reads all the time,” she hears her husband's voice, and he steps in surrounded with redcoats, with torches, oblivious. “Yes, she'd be bored otherwise.”_

_Before they burn her, she wants to say something witty, a revenge for his gormless betrayal, but she doesn't have time -_

she wakes up.

 

* * *

 

> My starlit Angelica,
> 
> My dreams of late are filled with premonition, and Eliza will tell you that I kick like a mule in my sleep. She might mention a few other ways she finds me mule-like. She's right, as always, and I don't resent her for it. I admire that ungenteel beast of burden. He seems to be eminently reliable, and common but sufficiently freakish to win my sympathy.
> 
> I have finally taken to reading Scripture again. As you predicted, it has given me some excellent closing verses – my rhymes are strong but unexceptionable. Still, I believe this is the source of my latest dream, which I will inflict upon you: the Hudson ran red as the sunset as I walked to it. It was a race I had to win, to get to my troops in time (or to my children; it kept changing as the dream progressed). There were white birds, not our mean seagulls, but the unconcerned pelicans of my childhood. They watched, and I knew failure was looming behind me. Then I stepped off the shore and the Hudson divided for me. I crossed, diagonally, and my birds followed. As we reached the shore opposite, the water rushed back, and I woke with no breath in my lungs.
> 
> I don't know what knowledge I might gain from this. I will stay away from holy bedtime texts for a while.
> 
> I must return to the comfort of my sums, but write to me, please, tell me of your dreams and your favourite apostle. I expect you will tell me it is Mary Magdalene – I know how you feel about apocrypha – but I'd like to hear it from you.
> 
> Always Yours,  
>  Alexander
> 
> post scriptum: I have reread this before sending it, and I wonder how you can endure me - I can barely endure me. I have never met a mule in person; my idea of them might be romanticized, and they are probably just as resentful of their lot in life as all of God's other creatures.

 

* * *

 

> Dear Alexander,
> 
> I caution you against such rustic metaphors. Should you use a phrase wrongly, Jefferson would doubtless hear about it, and crucify you with the absolute glee of a man who has been proved right about another man’s ignorance. But, just this once, I agree: mules are made to bear, and so are you.
> 
> I suppose sinister dreams must come with the spring air. I have not been reading anything at all challenging before bed, and still I’ve been tossing and turning.
> 
> Has Eliza ever told you about our horses? Hers was named Tulip, and mine Charybdis. Hers was a charming piebald mare with an even temper. Mine was a chestnut, and her temper matched mine. Peggy didn’t want a horse. In this, like in her hesitation to marry, she showed herself the wisest of Schuylers.
> 
> Eliza and I spent long summer days in the stables, underfoot to the men and women who tended to all our father’s stock. We would ride our mares occasionally, and walk them often, and we would tell them our secrets and weave flowers in their manes. When the war began, they were the first things that our father sold.
> 
> Our father is a generous man. Everyone knows this to be true, because it is in his nature to make sure that everyone hears of it. I don’t fault him – of course not, how could I? When lives are lost in defence of the country, our father said, luxuries must be sacrificed. A rational person might question which luxuries he chose to sacrifice, and which he chose to keep, but a dutiful daughter would never speak such doubts out loud.
> 
> I don’t fault him. And so my Charybdis became another senseless casualty of the war, or, more optimistically, some heroic soldier’s lunch.
> 
> And yet, she visited me in my dream last night. It was a forest of some kind, it had a French quality but it was no place that I recognised. And it was on fire, in the distance. And Charybdis was there to bring me to safety. But the wind was twirling the smoke above my head, and I couldn’t decide which way to run. Charybdis was more patient than she ever was in life, but I was failing us both. At last, I chose a direction, but by then, the fire was closing in from all sides, and only jumping through it would save us – and then, of course, I woke up.
> 
> Have I bored you with this story? You should ask Eliza for her memories of Tulip. They will be less strange than mine, and a great deal clearer as well. I think it would make her happy to remember.
> 
> All my love to all our loves.
> 
> Yours,  
>  Angelica.
> 
> Post scriptum: I endure you like I endure the sunlight on my skin.

She rereads her letter, and then copies it, neatly. The new post-script only reads, “The weather here is abysmal. I miss New York.”.

She puts the old letter on a ceramic plate, and watches it burn.

 

* * *

 

_This trial is familiar. He has been here before. The verdict is the same every time._

_His hands are tied. His shoulders ache. His attorney is in another room._

_From the prosecutors' table, Jefferson leers at him. In clipped, continental French, he speaks first._

_“The witch denies the accusations; what other proof do we need? An honest man would stay silent.”_

_“I have never stayed silent in my life,” Alexander says. There is never any point in defending himself, and, anyway, drowning is a simpler and cleaner proof._

_They dunk him below the water, and he frees himself, and flees from the surface. There is nothing for him there. The water is viscous, and warm, and greedy. Alexander feels himself pulled down, pulled into a kiss, and his fingers tangle in seaweed, like curls, and his mouth is full of salt and Alexander gives in to some dark-water creature's longing, and all he wants is to surrender his last breath, to become empty and clean -_

he wakes up, with wetness on his thigh.

Dawn is seeping through the shutters. He creeps out of bed, and washes himself. He plunges his head into the basin, to cool himself. He lets the water drip down his face, soaking his night-shirt. His office is still dark, but he doesn’t light a candle yet. He just needs to think.

Eliza comes in with a candle, and she is beautiful and wide-awake, and he isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting here. His hair is still wet, and stuck to his cheeks.

“Angelica wrote,” Eliza says. Alexander nods. His cuffs are wet too. “I invited her to visit us this summer - I wanted it to be a surprise! But her husband is taking her on some tour of some forests.” Eliza rolls her eyes, a gentle condemnation of the forests of Europe. “She can’t come until September. But then, we can keep her until spring.”

Alexander nods again, and knows his voice would come out hoarse. He offers his elbow to Eliza. After breakfast, he will look at his correspondence.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to **bigsunglasses** for the life-saving beta! ♥
> 
> The title of this fic is from Everything Is Everything by Lauryn Hill.


End file.
